Witness in Oregon standoff case confirms he was FBI informant

By Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian (TNS)

Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2016 | 12:41 p.m.

Defense lawyers rested in the Oregon standoff case Monday after they called a witness who confirmed he was an informant for the FBI and acknowledged that he infiltrated the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and supervised the shooting range for several days.

The man who occupiers initially knew only by his alias "John Killman" was revealed to be Fabio Minoggio, a Las Vegas resident subpoenaed by the defense to testify after prosecutors declined to confirm if he was a government informant.

Prosecutors followed with a quick rebuttal case, calling four witnesses to counter various points made in the defense case.

And so ended the evidence phase of the federal conspiracy trial of refuge takeover leader Ammon Bundy and six others after five weeks of testimony. U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown will give jury instructions Tuesday morning with closing arguments to follow.

The defendants are accused of conspiring to impede employees of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management from carrying out their official work through intimidation, threat or force. Four of the seven are charged with possessing a firearm in a federal facility and two are accused of theft of government property.

Minoggio, the defense's last witness, wore black-rimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose and was dressed in a blue polo shirt and rust-colored cargo pants. He testified that he was at the refuge from Jan. 23 through Jan. 26 and that the FBI reimbursed him for his expenses.

Asked if he received any other payments from the government for his information, Minoggio said, "No, it was freely given. I wasn't enticed or anything."

Minoggio said his truck did break down at one point and he bought a ballistics vest because he felt he was "going into harm's way."

"I was fully aware of what I was doing," he added.

While at the refuge, Minoggio said he was asked to oversee the shooting range, which earlier testimony revealed was by the refuge boat launch. He said he provided training on firearms safety and proficient use of firearms to the occupiers.

Minoggio was one of 15 confidential informants who fed the FBI information about the occupiers, testimony showed.

Nine of the 15 were at the refuge for various lengths of time between Jan. 4 and Jan. 26, according to a statement that Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Gabriel read to jurors. Those nine included the three who have been identified at trial: Minoggio, defense witness Terri Linnell of California and Mark McConnell, who was the driver of the Jeep that Ammon Bundy was riding in when he was arrested on Jan. 26.

None of the unidentified other six informants were at the refuge beyond Jan. 23, Gabriel told jurors.

Killman, defense lawyer Tiffany Harris pointed out in a written legal brief, was a participant in the firearms and military-style maneuvers training during the occupation and helped train one of the defendants, Jeff Banta, in hand-to-hand combat techniques.

He spoke with a French or South African accent to people at the refuge and his Facebook profile included a majority of friends who occupied the refuge, according to defense lawyers. Defense investigators learned Minoggio was born in Switzerland and had served in the Swiss army for 20 years. He was trained in "psy-ops," weaponry and martial arts, according to Harris' legal brief.

"We are dealing here with a situation of a confidential informant who is participating in the commission of the alleged offense," defense lawyer Marcus Mumford said in court.

Earlier Monday, prosecutors had refused to confirm if the man who went by "Mr. Killman" was working for the government.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Barrow said prosecutors aren't obligated to disclose any information identifying informants. If a person takes the witness stand and isn't truthful about their role, then the government would be responsible to come forward and correct any misinformation, he said.

Harris, who is standby counsel to defendant Shawna Cox, said Killman had been adamant that he wasn't an FBI informant, yet unredacted records that defense lawyers had from the government on the 15 confidential sources provided supporting material to suggest that he was acting in that capacity. They believe he was classified as the FBI's "confidential source No. 2."

Brown called the matter "a very unique scenario." She ruled that she wouldn't order the government to identify any of its 15 confidential sources, but if a witness testifies in a way that the government knows is false, "then we have a different story."

Defense lawyer Matthew Schindler, who represents defendant Kenneth Medenbach, argued that the defense team had the right to know who the "mystery people" were who brought the 22 long guns and 12 handguns to the refuge that prosecutors had FBI agents parade before jurors. Schindler pointed out that prosecutors and the FBI didn't identify who brought most the guns.

After the defense rested, prosecutors called four witnesses to testify. FBI agent Ben Jones was called to answer rancher Duane Schrock's testimony that Jones had intimidated him when Jones showed up at his ranch on Sept. 21 after Schrock was listed as a potential defense witness.

Jones said he did show up unannounced to Schrock's ranch outside Crane on Sept. 21 at the request of prosecutor Gabriel.

During direct examination, Jones said he pressed Schrock about what guns he saw on the refuge after Schrock initially told him he saw a few handguns. The agent said he was surprised that Schrock hadn't seen more during his trips to the refuge. After continued questioning, Schrock then told the agent that he was surprised to see a man walk into a meeting he was having with Ammon Bundy, holding a long gun, Jones said.

The agent approached the rancher as Schrock was seated on a tractor, he said.

During cross-examination by defendant Ryan Bundy and defense lawyer Marcus Mumford, Jones acknowledged that he was armed and accompanied by another agent when he visited with Schrock. Bundy asked if the agent considered it intimidating to show up as a government agent, armed, to interview a defense witness.

"Yes, that's something I think about," Jones said. "I try to be friendly and professional."

Harney County Sheriff's Sgt. Lucas McLain was called back to the stand and testified, contrary to defendants' accounts, that he never was at the Ye Old Castle restaurant in Burns on Jan. 2 when Ammon Bundy announced his plans to occupy the refuge before a march and rally in support of Harney County ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond.

McLain said he was riding with a partner as ordered, for officer safety, that day, sitting in his patrol car on Oregon 205 at Greenhouse Lane.

Harney County commissioner Steve Grasty testified for the government that he had asked Ammon Bundy to leave town during a town hall meeting on Jan. 19 in the Burns high school gym.

"I told Mr. Bundy he'd been there long enough and it was time for him to go home," Grasty said.

Grasty also explained why he didn't allow the Committee of Safety -- a group of local residents who formed at Ammon Bundy's urging -- to meet in the county fairgrounds as members had requested.

Grasty said the decision was made because of the ongoing occupation and the lack of a formal application and fees paid for the use of the county facility. He also said it was because there were "crimes being committed" at the refuge but his statement was stricken from the record.

Lastly, refuge manager Chad Karges was called back to the stand by prosecutors.

He testified that no refuge contractors were working or present at the refuge during the course of the 41-day occupation. Defense witnesses had said that a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service maintenance man was seen on the property.

Karges also noted that his dark brown official government jacket with the Fish & Wildlife Service logo on it was missing from the refuge when he returned to the property with FBI agents in mid-February.

In other developments Monday, the judge limited the government's proposed rebuttal case.

Prosecutors weren't allowed to call a government lawyer to discuss the court orders that were in place regarding Cliven Bundy's cattle that led to the standoff with protesters in April 2014 outside his ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada. They also weren't allowed to call U.S. Bureau of Land Management agent Jason Curry to discuss the armed standoff in Bunkerville. The judge reminded the government there's already a statement before jurors on what occurred in Bunkerville.

Barrow, one of the prosecutors, had sought to call those witnesses to rebut what he characterized as Ammon Bundy's "distorted" testimony about what precipitated the Bunkerville standoff.

Before court was adjourned, the judge read a note she received from six of the eight alternate jurors.

They asked that they be allowed to listen to a live audio feed of jury deliberations because they each felt "a vested interest in the trial." While they recognized that their request was unusual, they asked that it be considered, calling the Bundy trial a "landmark case in Oregon's history." They said their request reflected their "earnest attempt" to understand the deliberations process.

"I've never had such a request," Judge Brown said.

She also said she doesn't believe she can grant it. Among other things, if an alternative juror replaces one of the other jurors during deliberations, the alternate must start anew and not consider the earlier discussions.